Monday, March 23, 2009

"Geithner’s plan “will certainly help,” Meltzer, 1997 winner of New York University’s Money Marketeers Distinguished Achievement Award, said in a telephone interview today. At the same time, “the Congress has really clobbered the rule of law, and that has terrible implications for the future,” he said....

The plan is aimed at financing $500 billion to $1 trillion in purchases of illiquid real-estate assets, using $75 billion to $100 billion of the Treasury’s remaining bank-rescue funds. It also will rely on Fed financing and guarantees from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Treasury left some details to be announced later, including the precise amounts investors would be required to put up for each type of asset and the terms of loans that the Fed would provide."